Revision as of 13:18, 11 August 2008

Scott wants to teach a workshop on Processing, a free, open-source programming environment for artists, designers, and anyone interested in getting the computer to do work for you. Right now, he's gauging the level of interest in such a workshop, and working out how to structure it. If this sounds interesting to you, please add your name to the #Expressions of Interest section, or contact Scott directly.

Contents

Overview

Do you remember the triangular "turtle" from Logo? "Pen down, move forward, turn right..." It was an early, easy way to tell a computer how to draw something on the screen. Processing is just like a modern, really buff version of that turtle. Think of it as being like Flash, only less flashy. If you've ever had a vision of something you wish you could make on a computer screen, you can probably make it in Processing. Well, maybe. This workshop will get you started, anyway, even if you've never typed a line of programming code in your life.

This workshop is intended as an introduction for complete beginners. No programming is experience necessary, although you should be generally familiar with how to use your computer, download files, install programs, and so on. Computers will not be provided, so you should probably bring your own laptop to work on, or you could share with someone else. A wireless card isn't necessary, but may help. (Processing works on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux, so any kind of computer should work fine.)

Also, while the emphasis of this workshop will be on visual expressions of code, the concepts learned here can be extended to get Processing to generate audio, talk to microcontrollers (e.g. Arduino boards, MAKE boards, OSC devices), and generally interface with all kinds of other neat stuff.